


Second Baptism

by queensmooting



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Post - A Dance With Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 16:34:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18695239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queensmooting/pseuds/queensmooting
Summary: The Greyjoy siblings sail home.





	Second Baptism

**Author's Note:**

> for @geniusofevil

_ Black Wind _ crewmen shout as the jagged loom of Pyke floats onto the horizon. Theon hooks an arm around the rigging, lets it keep his sea legs upright. Months ago he never dared to imagine more than a swift death. He never dared to imagine home.

 

“We’re back, brother.”

 

Asha's voice is a shock at his back, as is the arm she slings around his shoulder. He flinches and feels guilty for it, though she doesn’t seem to notice.

 

Last time he’d seen this sight he fancied himself a beloved prince come home. Now he wasn’t sure what he was. Even the ironborn crewmen around him were strangers.

 

In all the world, in every sea, his only certainty was Asha.

 

*

 

Theon thought coming home would fix everything.

 

The halls of the Great Keep were drafty as he remembered. The Seastone Chair hadn’t changed since his last visit, save for the person sitting it. Even his childhood bedchamber was kept in meticulous condition. He runs a hand along the dusty wooden sails of his old toy boats and tries to remember what it was to smile with an unbroken mouth.

  
Even with the lull of waves in his ears, his dreams bring him to the Dreadfort. Winterfell. Stannis’s chains. When he wakes, itchy with sweat, it takes ages for the sea to slow his heart.

 

Theon thought coming home would fix everything, steady the tremors in his hands, shake the demons from his back. Often he wonders if Asha should have let Stannis carry out his plan, have his head before a heart tree, perhaps the one with Bran's voice. Often he wonders if it wouldn't be kinder for all of them.

 

*

 

“How long do we have?” Theon asks.

 

The ironborn needed a leader. Euron had taken his driftwood crown with him, but Asha had fashioned one of her own, like the kings of old. It still smelled of salt from the shore.

 

“No one will bother us here,” Asha says. “As long as the islanders have favorable winds and fish in their bellies at night, they will call me queen.”

 

Her voice rings with certainty in the wide hall. Asha’s sure way of speech was one of his few comforts, but a thought nags at him.

 

“I wasn’t thinking of the islanders.”

 

“Ah.” She secures an axe to her belt. “Our dear nuncles? I don’t imagine we’ll see them again. One will die with his mouth on the dragon horn. The other two can swim to the Drowned God’s hall together after they’ve thrown each other into the sea.”

 

Asha steps close, puts a strong hand on his shoulder. This time he doesn’t flinch.

 

“Don’t worry, little brother. It’s just you and me now.”

 

She ruffles his hair as she leaves the hall. He frowns, ducks out of her reach.

 

_ No matter her age, a big sister is a big sister. _

 

*

 

He’d heard Asha earned the people’s support in her queensmoot, but never realized she earned their love, too. Not until he watches her spend entire days settling disputes.

 

Asha couldn’t sit still long enough to make the Seastone Chair her own, preferring to walk the shores with shepherds reporting counts of livestock and salt wives arguing inheritance claims for their sons. From dawn to dusk she walked with sturdy iron legs and held her head high as a lady from one of Sansa's old songs.

 

Even with Theon's return there were no whispers of his birthright. He was grateful. Asha was the born ruler, and now for the first time in his life, his days were his own. 

 

*

 

Theon reads at his mother’s feet as she rocks in her chair. He doesn’t take her hand, doesn’t wish to frighten her with his own. She’s content to pat his head from time to time, her fingers light and brittle. He’s content with the aimless affection.

 

Alannys says one word the whole hour he sits with her. It’s all he needs to hear.

 

“I warned you,” Asha says when Theon returns from Harlaw. “Rodrik still thinks her mind can come back.” She snorts, but her eyes go dark and distant. “Tell me, did she think you were Rod or Maron?”

 

She says their names with ease, like she still remembers playing alongside them, or fighting them off when they’d aim bored kicks at Theon. They were less than ghosts to Theon now, lifetimes away. When he thinks of brotherhood all he sees is a spark of red hair, eyes bluer than the Trident.

 

“She said my name,” he says. “She knew it was me.”

 

Asha’s face softens. “Oh. Oh, Theon.”

 

“It took me years to remember who I was.” Theon finds he can smile again. “Give her time.”

 

*

It was strange to wake every morning and choose what to wear, what to eat, what to do. He’s never lived a life without someone holding his leash. Balon. Ned. Ramsay. Stannis.

 

He spends long days trying to remember what used to bring him joy. It takes the sight of the castle stables to remind him.

 

Even now Theon feels Smiler's warm nose nuzzling his hair. He couldn’t handle a bow anymore, but he could mount a horse.

 

The boy he once was might have taken pride in the way the ironborn watch him ride, their jaws slackening as his easy turns and nudges send him smoothly along rocky cliffs. The steady motion and the wind at his ears make him remember what it was to ride alongside a king, to be trusted, before he--

 

_ It is done _ . He steadies himself with Asha’s words, words she gave him every night on their voyage home, when his nightmares kept them both awake.  _ The past is dead and you are not. You will rise. Again and again _ .

 

Theon rests his horse at a hill overlooking the coast where his uncle Aeron once brought him back to the Drowned God. The recognition lights his heart. Suddenly he realizes what he must do.

 

*

 

“I'm not a priest, Theon.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Then why--”

 

“It’s you, sister. It has to be you.”

 

*

 

They face each other on their knees, pebbly sand scratching at their trousers. Frigid water laps at their boots, but Theon only feels the glow in his chest.

 

Asha breathes deep, pushes breeze-blown hair from her face. She reaches toward the shore.

 

“Let Theon, your servant, be born again from the sea, as you were.”

 

A handful of seawater swells into her palms. Theon closes his eyes.

 

“Bless him with salt.”

 

He sees the mother who once defended him from Balon, once the only islander unafraid of his uncles. Water trickles cool behind his ears. His back stays unbowed. 

 

“Bless him with stone.”

 

He sees high castle walls thick with snow, an auburn-haired boy pulling him by the hand to join his games, even as his siblings wrinkle their noses. Another handful of seawater parts his hair.

 

“Bless him with steel.”

 

He feels wind rushing around him, Jeyne's impossibly fierce grip, the swoop of his stomach as the snow rose to meet them. The fear. The freedom. The choice.

 

Seawater paints his face. Theon's eyes open. “What is dead may never die.”

 

He hardly hears Asha's response over the whip of a gale, but she smiles around her sentence. At the word  _ stronger _ she pulls him into a hug, soaked shirt and all. Theon sighs. With his arms around her he finally feels home.

 

*

 

A white raven leaves a letter in Asha’s hand. The waters around Pyke turn to ice. Longships anchor for the season and sailors grow restless as the winter winds.

 

Theon sits on a balcony outside the Great Keep, knees tucked against his thin chest. His breath shortens with the cold but the sun will set soon, turning the frozen water to glass shards of light in every color.

 

Perhaps it was why he survived everything, from his father's rebellion to Stannis's judgment. Perhaps he survived to see this.

 

“Theon.”

 

Asha's learned to greet him before a touch, so he doesn't startle. When he turns she drapes a blanket over his back.

 

“Trying to freeze to death before spring?”

 

Asha joins him at his side. Theon opens the blanket to let her share the warmth.

 

“I remember,” Asha says, “when you'd lock yourself up here to keep Rod and Maron from getting in and throwing you over. The way they'd scream when I snuck up on them with a paddle…”

 

Asha laughs. In his years away he never realized how much he missed her loud laugh.

 

“Seems there's more trouble every day,” Asha admits, settling back against their shared seat. “Food stores gone bad, sheep freezing without proper shelters…it’s been ten years and winter still came too soon. I could use some help.”

 

“What can I do?” Theon asks without hesitation.

 

“It's a greenland tradition, I know, but I'd like you to be my second-in-command. Fill in for me when I can't make it to council meetings, hear complaints when there's too many for me to hear in a day. If you accept I would name you my hand.”

 

Theon can't help a wry smile. “A hand with two fingers?”

 

“A hand is a hand.”

 

She takes his without a flicker of revulsion. Theon's heart rushes into his throat. He turns away when his eyes prickle. Still Asha holds on.

 

“Alright. I'll do it.”

 

“Good.”

 

The sea in the distance is solid ice, spray freezing where it crests. Only the smallest waves remain free to lap at the shore, friendly touches of a distant spring.

 

“When winter is over,” Asha says, “you should go sailing again. As a proper captain.” Another laugh plays at her lips. “You could even take the  _ Sea Bitch _ for old time's sake.”

 

Theon runs a finger along the hem of the blanket, not wanting to meet Asha’s eyes.

 

His face wasn't the only part of him to age decades in the Dreadfort. He felt it in his bones when he rose each day. He felt it in his heart when he raced up the stairs. His time in dungeons put a weakness in his stomach, a cough in his lungs that wouldn’t leave. Theon hid his bloodied rags from Asha, but he’ll have to tell her eventually.

 

He hopes when he’s gone Asha will find someone worthy to rule beside her. He can't bear the thought of her alone.

 

“What do you think?” Asha asks, nudging him. “The world is yours now, Theon. You could sail anywhere you wanted.”

 

In his heart he knows he'll never leave the islands again. The thought gives him nothing but peace.

 

“I'll think about it,” he says, and leans against his sister's shoulder.


End file.
